


Where Angels Fear to Tread

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2019 [15]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 21:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21083411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: The promise of an ultimate weapon against the enemy, hidden in a place one cannot even enter without being driven insane. Such a venture is far too auspicious for the Master to pass up.





	Where Angels Fear to Tread

The trip had not been easy, the landing even less so. The station orbiting the Obscura had been deserted for some time, ever since the failed Dalek expedition through the gateway. Said gateway had nearly closed, but not quite. Nobody had noticed that it was slowly starting to open again. Nobody but the Master.

As the capsule materialised, the shields held firm against the Obscura energies still raging through the station. The door of the Master’s TARDIS opened just slightly, letting out a small machine. The Master watched it work from his TARDIS, watched the scanner as it showed him where the small machine was without exposing him to the infamously maddening sight of the Obscura outside, watched the machine closing the shutters and rendering the station safe to be ventured out onto, and through the entire process could not help but feel that he was being watched in return.

When the machine finally returned to the TARDIS, all the shutters on the station closed, the Master finally stepped out of his TARDIS and took in the sight. The power was off, of course, but he would soon fix that. He strode out towards the door in front of him, and stopped.

“Who’s there?” he called to the empty station.

Nothing.

“I know you’re there, I can sense you,” he called again. “Why hide? Let’s talk, Time Lord to Time Lord.”

Still no response.

“Very well,” he announced to no reply. “If you won’t talk to me, I shall just have to ignore you and carry on with my plans. I assume you are smart enough to not interfere.”

“Who do you think you are?” came the reply, finally.

“Aha!” the Master said triumphant. “At last, you speak to me. Now, you will tell me who you are and how you came to be on this station.”

“Who do you think you are?” the voice repeated.

“Me?” he was incredulous. Whoever this was must have been here a long time, to not know who he was. “I am the Master, and you will obey me! Answer my questions: who are you; and why are you here?”

“Oh, I’ve been on this station for a very long time,” the voice came again. The Master listened for a direction, any indication of where whoever was speaking was hiding, but the voice seemed to come from all around him. Even his telepathic senses couldn’t pinpoint a location: the Time Lord seemed to exist everywhere and nowhere all at once. Fascinating, he thought. If he could master that skill, imagine what he could do with it.

“Then you must know of the weapon,” the Master countered.

“Ah, and there it is,” the voice replied, smug. Far too smug for the Master’s liking. Whoever this voice was, she was not in control. He would make sure of that.

“So you do know,” he accused the disembodied voice. “I’m here for the weapon, of course. The War is still going outside of this little celestial cul-de-sac of yours. I need-” he stopped himself. He wouldn’t let himself get riled up by this, this nothing. “_Gallifrey_ needs that weapon.”

“Naturally, it’s always about the weapons, isn’t it, Master?” the voice shot back.

“Ah, you know of me as well.”

“Of course I do, everybody knows about the Master,” the voice responded, although the Master did not like her tone. She didn’t sound nearly afraid enough. She sounded mocking. Condescending. Like she was laughing.

“Then you know that if you don’t give me what I want, you’ll only live long enough to regret it,” he growled, voice dropping. He’d had enough games. It was time to get what he came for.

To his shock and irritation, the voice only laughed. “Oh, I know you alright. The renegade who ran from Gallifrey at the first sign of trouble. Who ran from the War as soon as it started to look for an easy solution. Who runs and runs and never confronts himself.”

“Enough!” the Master roared. “You will show yourself! You will give me the weapon! Or you will die screaming!”

“Who are you to demand such of me?” the voice taunted.

“I am the Master!” he thundered. “And you _will_ obey me!”

“_I_ am Danna,” the voice finally identified herself. “And I’d like to see you try to make me.”

“Show yourself and I will!” the Master demanded, well and truly out of patience.

“Show myself?” Danna laughed again. “I am everywhere! Surely you know of the ghosts of the Obscura?”

“Fancy yourself a ghost, do you?” the Master asked, trying to calm himself and having limited success. “It hardly matters. I shall find the weapon myself and leave you to rot here if you will not assist me!”

“Oh, as always, the weapon,” Danna sighed into nothingness, the sound echoing through the chamber and echoing hauntingly through the Master. “Honestly, you’re not better than the Daleks.”

“How dare you?!” the Master shouted at her, temper definitively lost. “I am the Master!”

“So you keep saying,” Danna lazily retorted.

“I am the one who will stop the Daleks! And I will do whatever I must to do so!”

“I’ve heard that before,” Danna warned. “So many times, and from those I trusted. Believe me: it will not end well for you. You would do well to heed my advice.”

“And you would do well to show me the weapon, and stop wasting my time,” the Master took a breath, less angry, but no less authoritative.

“Oh, come now,” Danna had clearly had enough of the charade. “There _is_ no weapon. There never was.”

“Impossible,” the Master shook his head. “I have heard of the weapon housed on the Obscura station, to be used against the Daleks-”

“_I_ was the weapon,” Danna explained. “Before I became a ghost. I was put on this station to close the gateway and destroy any Daleks who came through, but I failed. And for my failure, I was executed, as military protocol demands. I have no ill feelings, but there is no weapon for you here, Master.”

The Master tried not to believe her. He tried to force himself to doubt her words, to see past the lie that surely must be there. He had heard of the Obscura weapon so often, in hushed tones but high regards. It must be here. It must be. He couldn’t allow himself to be dissuaded. And yet, despite all of his mental fortitude and determination to see his mission through, he could not help but believe the truth that Danna spoke.

“Then this has been a waste of my time,” he turned, furious, and strode back towards his TARDIS.

“Goodbye, Master,” Danna called after him. “Send my regards to Ir-.” Her voice was cut off by the TARDIS door closing.

The Master fumed. Not only had he come away empty handed after all the effort he had gone to, but that infernal Time Lord, that damned Danna had taunted him, gotten a rise out of him, made him lose his temper, and he never had a chance at revenge. Destroying the station would open the gateway, and he couldn’t allow that: it would let more Daleks through. No. He had a more fitting punishment in mind.

As he set the coordinates to leave for another venture, another chance at a weapon, he set up an overload in his TARDIS’s power circuits and vented the excess power outside the craft. The accumulated power surged into the gateway, closing it behind him as he left. Permanently. Nobody would ever be able to slip through again. Nobody would ever encounter Danna again. She would stay on the station forever, eternally trapped in isolation, unable to leave, and shut away from the universe. That was his revenge. He was the Master, and he always made good on his promises of vengeance.


End file.
